Motegi Loves SPEED

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Wheel manufacturer to start racing wheel-to-wheel. Insert pun here.

By IGN Cars

Wheel manufacturer Motegi is getting ready to compete in the SPEED World Challenge racing series. We're too lazy to pull quotes and try to pass a news piece off as our own (c'mon, it's Friday!), so we'll let the Motegi people tell you all about this latest racing development in their own words.

The release text will start after this bitchin' pic of Motegi's SPEED World Challenge Lexus IS.

"Motegi Racing is about motorsports and the SPEED World Challenge racing series is a perfect way to showcase the performance and strength of our wheels," said Pete Wendt, brand manager for Motegi Racing Performance Wheels. "The series is a perfect fit because we can use our out-of-the box, super-lightweight forged TRAKLITE wheels and run them on the production based cars in the series. These are cars that anyone can purchase in a dealer's showroom and compete in door-to-door racing on competition race tracks. That's what we love about Speed World Challenge."

For 2007, Motegi Racing has sponsored the Auto Analyser Racing team. They will be competing in the SPEED World Challenge Touring Car Class with a Lexus IS300 driven by Andrew Wojteczko. "Auto Analyser Racing has selected the Motegi Racing TRAKLITE 2.0, one of the lightest wheels available, to gain the best possible performance advantage. With forged construction the TRAKLITE 2.0 offers great stiffness, durability, with incredibly light weight. These characteristics provide optimum handling and acceleration capabilities," said Wojteczko.

According to Wendt, "We are excited to be working with the Auto Analyser team and we are confident that they will be highly competitive this season with the Motegi Racing TRAKLITE wheels." The 6-spoke TRAKLITE 2.0 that the team is using was created to be even lighter than its predecessor, the TRAKLITE 1.0, making it one of the lightest wheels on the market today.

The SPEED World Challenge Touring Car Championship is a competitive road racing championship that is the only series in North America that employs a standing start that produces exciting and no-holds-barred racing. Race fields typically include more than 50 cars featuring competition among the world's top manufacturers including Audi, BMW, Porsche, Acura, Aston Martin and Lexus among others.

Yeah, there's a definite "sales" vibe in this PR sheet, but it's a PR sheet, it's supposed to sound like it's selling something. But that vibe doesn't change the fact that the SPEED World Challenge is cool, nor does it change the fact that this racing campaign will help Motegi continue to develop race-proven parts for us enthusiasts. We're gonna work on getting a closer look at this car, but until then, be sure to look out for it on SPEED's coverage of the SPEED World Challenge.